Too Young
by Melantha Frost
Summary: The lone winter sprite is still selfless as ever, even with his 300 years of isolation. His unbreakable loyalty may just cost him his immortal life.


Yup. Finally got this outta my head. Hope ya like, yada yada yada, and I don't own Rise of the Guardians. And I don't own any of the quotes down there either.

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"Uhm... Oops?"

To any disbelieving mortal, it would seem like a boy was sleeping in an unnaturally cold room. Truth was, a teenaged white-haired boy and a short golden man were standing amidst the sleeping bodies of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. And a yeti.

"Soo... What now?" The snow-haired boy, Jack Frost, rubbed the back of his head. If he hadn't bumped his staff into that alarm clock, the greyhound wouldn't have chased the bunny, and the golden Sandman wouldn't have had to accidentally shoot almost everybody with dreamsand. Oh well.

A shadow passed by Jamie's bedroom window. Jack cried out in alarm, and followed the nightmare. "Come on Sandy! We can find Pitch!" The old dreamweaver sighed, he wasn't sure if leaving the other Guardians was a wise idea. Sandy floated out the window anyway.

The two spirits didn't notice Jamie's younger sister. They didn't notice her take North's snowglobe. They didn't notice the portal leading to the Warren. They didn't notice North waking up, either.

Jack and Sandy followed the nightmare, and another joined the dark horse. In and out of houses, Sandy managed to jump on one and purify it back into a dream horse, then into a manta ray.

Meanwhile, Jack managed to freeze the other nightmare. "I got it! Sandy! Sandy, you see that?" He chuckled. He poked and prodded the horse frozen to the roof, and didn't notice the Nightmare King stalking him. "Look at this thing," the frozen child muttered.

"Frost?" He nimbly dodged the ice blast from the winter spirit and materialized on a different roof, "You know, for a neutral party, you spend an awful lot of time with those weirdos." Pitch spat out the word weirdos as if it were poison in his mouth. He paced forward, "This isn't your fight Jack."

"You made it my fight when you stole those teeth," he retorted.

"Teeth? Why do you care about the teeth?" He asked maliciously, although there was genuine curiosity, too.

Sandy chose that moment to appear. Pitch Black noticed the dreamweaver up close and personal, ready for a fight. He side-stepped away with a small gasp, but quickly recovered. "Now this is who I'm looking for," he gestured to Sandy, who summoned his golden whips and lashed out at the King of Nightmares. Pitch dodged every lash, and a dark scythe appeared in his hands.

He and Sandy started a dance. Pitch would take a swing at Sandy, who would defend himself with a crack of his whips. They would go back and forth, until eventually, the little man managed to wrap his whip around Pitch's wrist. He swung the grey man into the sky and side-to-side, throwing him off of the roof. Pitch fell onto a car, setting off it's alarm, and he bounced into the road. Sandy wiped his hands, and the whips disappeared.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," Jack looked at the little man with newfound respect. They floated off of the roof to confront Pitch.

"Okay, easy, you can't blame me for trying, Sandy," Pitch sweet-talked, scrambling backwards from Sandy and Jack. "You don't know what it's like, to be weak, and hated!" He stood up, holding up a hand in surrender. "It was stupid of me to mess with your dreams. So, I'll tell you what," he looked up with a menacing glare, "you can have them back."

Nightmares appeared, from sewers and alleys, from roofs and shops. The ferocious horses surrounded the two Guardians. "You take the ones on the left, I'll take the ones on the right?" Sandy shrugged and summoned his whips as Pitch came up, riding on the biggest nightmare. He glared at them.

"Boo."

The horses surged forward, Sandy lashing out with his whips, and Jack freezing every nightmare he could. They, along with Pitch, looked up when they saw North's sleigh. Filled with the sleeping bodies of Tooth, Aster, and North.

The sleigh ran into a pole, jostling and waking the three dozing Guardians.

Sandy, not seeing a way out of the crowd of darkness, took Jack's hand and blasted off into the air, forcing the dark horses to follow after them. The little man let go of the teenager, leaving him behind in mid-air, and spiraled ever higher. The youngest spirit iced every stray nightmare that came after him. He was grabbed (again) by the newly awakened Tooth.

North and Bunny soon joined the fight. Bunny jumped off of the sleigh and threw his boomerangs. He jumped back on the sleigh as North passed by. North stood up on the sleigh and used his swords to slice any nightmare that came his way.

Jack dodged a nightmare, only for him to drop his staff. As soon as he did, he fell through the air. The falling sprite tried to grab his staff and succeeded just as he landed on the wing of Santa's sleigh. Bunny glanced at him amusedly, "You might wanna duck."

The winter sprite glanced backwards and saw the incoming nightmare, along with the boomerang behind it. The nightmare was destroyed, and the boomerang kept going. Jack ducked, and when he was sure it was safe, he looked up to see Bunny's smug face.

Sandy's dreamcloud was completely surrounded by dark sand. He lashed out with his whips, turning the black sand into dreamsand, only for it to turn back into a nightmare. The short man didn't notice Pitch. He didn't notice him form an arrow.

Both of them didn't notice the blue and white blur speeding toward the golden speck amidst the dark cloud. They did hear Jack's "NO!"

Pitch's eyes widened when he hit the wrong spirit. Sandy silently gasped, and in a fit of rage, he flicked his now much thicker whips and hit the black-robed man. Pitch fell out of the sky, thoroughly afraid of the normally gentle dreamweaver. The horses sensed his fear and chased him back down into the hole he came from. The hole leading to the Nightmare King's lair closed.

The Guardians didn't care about their archenemy. They were worried about the injured spirit.

Jack fell out of the sky, a black spot of nightmare sand on his chest, and spreading. His eyes were open, glazed with pain and fear. The other spirits called out to him. Sandy, now calm, grabbed Jack out of the sky (again!) and set him down on his golden platform. North's sleigh landed beside them.

Tooth, North, and Bunny stood back, heads bowed. Sandy had always been closer to the winter sprite than the others. Said sprite was gasping for air. "Sandy... Don't... Don't blame... Pitch..." Sandy had leaned in closer, for Jack's voice was weakening. He shook his head exasperatedly, Jack always thought of others before himself.

"Not... His... Fault..." Jack was heaving now, his skin tone an almost human shade. His last words were, "I'm scared." The Guardians' hearts broke, Jack was still a child, after all. He had a right to be scared, through those 300 years alone, and yet he still fought Pitch, the master of fear.

Nobody has ever heard Sandy speak in many, many years. And the golden man has never sung before. He closed his eyes and started to hum. Then he opened his mouth, and crooned a soft lullaby.

_Deep in the meadow, under the willow  
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow  
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes  
And when you awake, the sun will rise._

_Here it's safe, here it's warm  
Here the daisies guard you from harm  
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true  
Here is the place where I love you._

_Deep in the meadow, hidden far away  
A cloak of leaves, A moonbeam ray, Forget your woes and let your troubles lay  
And when again it's morning, they'll wash away._

A moonbeam ray shone down on the weakening winter spirit. Jack clenched his hands into Sandy's robe. A small, satisfied breath escaped Jack's frail body, black sand fully encompassing him. Sandy purified the nightmare sand into golden tendrils, which floated off to give good dreams, and left behind a deathly cold brown-haired boy.

_Here it's safe, here it's warm  
Here the daisies guard you from every harm  
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true  
Here is the place where I love you._

A tear ran down the eldest spirit. Then another, and another. Soon, a river of sand tears ran down his face. A light flurry of snow floated down from the skies, and grew heavier, as if the Man in the Moon himself was crying.

One thought was running through all of the Guardians' heads.

'He was too young.'

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A/N: First one-shot. Don't hate, please R&R, and if you recognize anything from the movie, it's because it _is_ from the movie. And I will most likely make another one of these... I've read way too many sad fics...

Deep in the Meadow belongs to the Hunger Games! Poor Rue! );

And before anybody else asks, no, I am not making Jack somehow come back to life. If he's dead, he's dead. I might make a sequel about the Guardians years later.


End file.
